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He was a professor of psychology of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana from 1949 to 1984, and a research professor of the Institute of Communications Research (ICR), in the UI College of Communications. He as the Director of the ICR from 1957 to 1984. He served as president of the American Psychological Association from 1962 to 1963. [1]

Osgood served on the Social Science Advisory Board of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency from 1964 to 1971, at the height of the Cold War. [2]

Among his many awards were the APA's Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award (1960), and the APA's Kurt Lewin Award (1971).

At the height of Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, Osgood formulated a new approach to international relations called "Graduated Reciprocation in Tension-reduction", or GRIT. This was first articulated in a paper titled, "Reciprocal Initiative",and developed at greater length in his seminal book, An Alternative To War Or Surrender, both published in 1962. Osgood hoped to be able to reverse the nuclear arms race through a series of carefully calibrated,
reciprocal steps which would gradually foster greater trust between the two superpowers. He was appointed to the Social Science Advisory Board of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, serving from 1964 to 1971.[3]